Email from Jim Dean at DFA

[madfloridian]

"Thank you.

You and DFA members nationwide did incredible work trying to save Democrats from themselves.

You deserve the credit for never giving up and fighting all the way to the end.

Together, we raised over one million dollars for progressives candidates, made over one million phone calls in 16 tight races, and delivered over 250,000 volunteer hours on the ground.

While it was a tough night, we had a few important victories too. DFA 2010 Progressive Hero Barbara Boxer won. Public Option Heroes Michael Bennet, Kristen Gillibrand, Jared Polis, and Chellie Pingree all won without running away from their votes for Healthcare. Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Raul Grijalva was in the fight of his life and won. In fact 94% of the rest of the Progressive Caucus also won (compared to only 47% of the Blue Dogs).

Florida amendments legally requiring fair redistricting of congressional districts -- instead of Republican-controlled gerrymandering -- won. The anti-environmental Proposition 23 in California, which could have rolled back some of the most important clean air laws in the country, was defeated. And bold progressive Peter Shumlin was elected the first Democratic Governor of Vermont since Howard Dean left office in 2002.

The fact is progressive heroes who lost last night like Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson became collateral damage in a toxic election environment created by weak leadership and corporate Democrats who refused to stand up and fight for real change. Progressives like Annie Kuster, Mary Jo Kilroy, and Tom Perriello ran some of the strongest grassroots campaigns in history, but were drowned out by unregulated corporate front groups that spent hundreds of millions to scare and lie to voters.

The biggest lesson from last night is actually pretty simple. For Democrats to win in the future, they need to fight for the people they represent and stop cutting deals to water down reform with the same corporate interests who will turn around and spend unlimited amounts of money to defeat Democrats year after year.

It was a tough election and it's a tough fight ahead of us, but we have no regrets for fighting every day to move America forward -- and we never will."

-Jim

Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America

I appreciate this email, but it is hard to bounce back after the hand we were dealt in Florida yesterday.

It's very hard here in Florida to accept that we have Senator Rubio and Governor Rick Scott

The nation will soon see Marco Rubio's extreme views in action on the national scene, but it will mostly be Florida that will suffer from Scott's win.

[EFerrari]

1. K&R

[polichick]

2. The highlighted part says it well...

Dean remains on the right track - wonder what he'll do next.

k&r

[kick-ass-bob]

3. Agreed. When I read that in my email

I thought exactly the same thing.

[democrank]

4. Finally.......

Some sanity regarding last night`s lesson! Reread the highlighted part, then read it again.